


Crystal Bones and Filigree

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Fluff, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Holidays, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 07:59:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17096882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: “He presses his palms to her ruddy cheeks and kisses the icy tip of her nose. He battles back against the distraction, and that’s another piece of the puzzle. The distraction itself is part of all this, but he has hold of it now. The not-so-disparate pieces.”





	Crystal Bones and Filigree

**Author's Note:**

> Set Christmas 2013 (Season 6)

 

 

“Won’t you fall in love with me?

You’re the closest thing to Heaven that I’ll ever see

We were cut from the same paper that was folded long ago

So let all the other snowflakes turn to snow”

—Hem, “Identical Snowflakes”

* * *

 

 

She’s been doing something on the down low. She’s been trying to, anyway.

It’s been going on for weeks. At least a couple of weeks, he thinks. It’s hard to tell, because she _does_ keep it on the down low. Kind of. In the beginning, whenever that is.

She has the first part nailed. The part where she abruptly announces some errand or other, and her feet are already in her shoes—her coat is already buttoned to the chin, and her glancing kiss is already cooling on his cheek—before he can call out that they already have that, he already did that, why on earth would they need that?

She has the slipping away part nailed well enough that the odd little moments don’t click together at first, and maybe that’s down to the infinite variety of her coats, her shoes, her scarves. Maybe that’s down to the magic of her kiss on his cheek. Whatever it is, he doesn’t see the pattern right away. The curious, convergent timing, day after day.

In his defense, it varies. Not just the coats and scarves and shoes and the ridiculous, invented errands. Everything varies.

She’s barely gone two minutes sometimes.

 _Too cold,_ she’ll say, then, stamping her feet. Dropping the mail on the table by the door, and blowing into her hands theatrically, even though her cheeks aren’t even red, and really, she’s barely been gone two minutes.

But sometimes it’s longer. Sometimes it’s ten minutes, and sometimes it’s twenty-ish. Sometimes she has the thing she set out for in hand. A strange, lone grocery item, or a magazine she swears his mother mentioned wanting.

Something she has nothing at all.

_They were out._

_Closed._

_Too crowded to deal with._

She’s always ready with another excuse. Another glancing kiss. Or a not-so-glancing one sometimes, when it really is cold. When she’s been gone thirty minutes or forty. Forty-five, and she’ll ruthlessly untuck his shirt to press icy palms against the warmth of his lower back. She’ll toss her head back and laugh at the way he gasps and grabs hold of her arms, still in their coat sleeves. She’ll laugh. 

It’s one of those days when the penny drops for him. Part of the penny, anyway, and it slots in place with a satisfying click. It’s been fifty-two minutes. He’s supposed to be writing. Supposed to be, and he’s reached the point of desperation that comes with apps and timers and a terrifying new beast that erases everything if he stops typing for more than a few seconds. 

So he knows it’s been exactly fifty-two minutes when he hears the sharp tweet of stilettos on slate tile in the hall. It’s been exactly fifty-two minutes when he does a rapid-enough series of scrolls and key strokes to capture his few meagre screens of text in the instant before they’re swallowed whole by that monstrous thing he’ll never use again. Ever.

It’s been exactly fifty-two minutes when he makes it to the threshold of his office just as the tall, sliding pile of mail leaves her mysteriously bare fingers and lands on the table by the door, and it suddenly clicks. _The mail._

“Cold!” She crosses the room swiftly, and it’s true enough. She wraps her arms around him, laughing, and he swears he can see the cloud of her breath as she tips her had back to flash him a look of wicked triumph as she liberates his shirttails. As his spine arches and his own breath races all the way down to his toes on a sharp inhale.

“Cold,” he agrees.

He presses his palms to her ruddy cheeks and kisses the icy tip of her nose. He battles back against the distraction, and that’s another piece of the puzzle. The distraction itself is part of all this, but he has hold of it now. The not-so-disparate pieces.

He spreads his fingers wide and slides one hand up her back to press all of her into the warmth of his body. He lays his cheek against the long, frigid expanse of her neck. His gaze comes to rest on the bright, half-toppled stacks of envelopes all the way across the room, and he knows that’s it. _The mail._ She always has the mail. 

He surrenders to the heavenly distraction of her squirming against him, chattering about this store and that not having something absolutely essential to something else. He murmurs back as though he’s really listening. As though it requires all his attention to unwind her scarf and unbutton her jacket, and she chatters in a way that’s exactly not like her, except for lately.

Except when she’s trying to do . . . whatever this is on the down low. 

* * *

He thinks it’s about him for half a minute. He thinks it’s about a gift that might reveal itself at a glance. Something huge or tellingly tiny. Something bulky or awkward or undisguisable that she’s trying hard to intercept. But he only thinks that for half a minute. 

She has options if that were the case. She has her place or the precinct. She has every single building employee in the palm of her hand, and they’d all jump at the chance to be part of any conspiracy of hers. Ditto his mother. Even Alexis would jump at the chance to spring a genuine surprise on him, and anyway it’s the mail.

It’s not packages or parcels or cellophane-wrapped gift baskets she’s interested in. Those pile up unheeded. They arrive by bellman’s cart when he remembers to haul them up to the loft, or someone from the lobby does it for him when they run out of room down there.

But she’s uninterested in the knock on the door or the bump of the brass cart over the threshold. She rolls her eyes sometimes at the ridiculous expense of something from a fan that Black Pawn has sent over. She snorts at the oddball things he just couldn’t resist buying himself when he stumbled across them while shopping for everyone else. She buries her nose deeper in her book when he shakes and rattles things addressed to her and tries to guess what they might be. Who they might be for.

She’s utterly unconcerned about anything bigger than an envelope, and that’s a mystery in itself. Another mystery unfolding, once he thinks to notice what he’s noticing. 

It’s about the mail. Every one of her improvised, aborted, invented, unfinished errands is about intercepting the stack of envelopes that goes thicker as the days shorten on the march toward Christmas. He’s sure of the _how_ and belatedly sure of the _what,_ but the _why_ remains elusive. The why is complicated by everything that comes next.

She has the mail. She _always_ has the mail, and she’d rather he didn’t notice. She’d rather he didn’t ask about it, and he’s more than happy not to. He’s more than happy to follow her down the path of distraction she’s chosen quite carefully, but he’s mystified by what comes next. What _doesn’t_ come next, because it sits there, then. Mostly, the bright, sliding pile sits where she’s dropped it, and she couldn’t be less interested once it leaves her hands.

She doesn’t rifle through it, surreptitiously or out in the open. She hardly even looks at it, unless it’s to grouse at him about it every once in a while. But that’s more about clutter than anything. It’s more about the fact that disarray is still something they still clash over more than a year on. 

_Open or toss_? she’ll say, holding a handful high as she stands with her foot poised over the garbage can pedal.

 _Open,_ he answers, quickly moving to snatch the thick, bright stack from her hand. It’s only ever a fraction of what’s there, but he moves quickly. He’s learned the hard way that she means it, and he certainly doesn’t relish the idea of shaking potato peelings off envelope after envelope. So he makes a production of opening them, and that’s no help at all. 

 _Mr. & “Mrs.” Richard Castle,_ he’ll call out from his office to the living room. _Sarcastic quote marks, Beckett. That’s what happens when you won’t set a wedding date._

But she doesn’t rise to the bait. Or not much, anyway. She’ll tear an envelope in half if she happens to be passing by. She’ll take the pen from his hand and scan down each of his half-dozen Christmas card lists to draw an emphatic _X_ through the offending party’s name, but only once in a while.

He wonders if she’s culling. If she’s waiting on one thing in particular or regularly plucking out what offends her and . . . what? Trashing it? Squirreling it away? Huddling over a tiny bonfire of silver and green and red every damned day? He wonders, but only for half a minute.

Because she _knows_ the pile will sit until she bugs him about, so it’s not any one thing she’s lying in wait for. And sporadic double-duty pat downs when she’s distracting him yield nothing except the occasional twist of his ear. Not once does he find a stash of things in her coat pockets, and as far as impromptu bonfires go, he’s absolutely sure that every one of the _Mr. & Mrs. _cards, sarcastic quote marks or not, would be featured fuel, even though she almost never gives him the satisfaction of rising to the bait.

It’s about the mail, but it’s not about the mail. The _why_ remains elusive.

* * *

He follows her one day. They’re close enough to Christmas that he can taste it on his tongue. He can feel it in the exasperated jostle of elbows and shoulders and bursting-at-the-seams shopping bags every time they venture out.

He’s elated by it. The bustling energy and the grudging smiles strangers slant at one another even as they’re treating one another like unwelcome obstacles. She is . . . not.

He hates the late start he got on this part of her. This immense, heart-breaking part of her experience that he’d never thought about until last year, and he feels . . . so stupid about that. So dense and bumbling and caught out when he’s been professionally worried the details of her life to death for years now, and somehow he’d never once thought about the cruel juxtaposition of dates.

He hates that it leaves him at a loss now. Another year on with one wonderful Christmas behind them, however rocky a start it got off to, but he’s still at a loss.

He doesn’t get the process. He doesn’t know what’s new or what’s old. If the thing about the mail, whatever it is, has to do with him or with them or with her alone, so he gives in and follows her.

He doesn’t take a coat. He doesn’t take a scarf or gloves or anything, even though he knows it’s bitterly cold that day. Even though he has no idea where he might find her or even _if_ he will. She’s been gone thirty-four minutes, and he has no way of knowing, but it’s penance he supposes. Presumptive punishment, because he probably shouldn’t follow her. He absolutely shouldn’t follow her, but his patience is broken and he wants to know the why of it.

He _has_ to know the why of it. That’s what he tells himself as he waves off Eduardo’s raised eyebrows. He waves off the disbelief and the alarm beneath question: _Going out, Mr. Castle?_

He hesitates halfway through one revolution of the heavy glass door that spills out into the cold grey of a late, late December morning. He considers revolving right back into the warmth of the lobby and interrogating the doorman about her habits. He thinks better of it, though. He makes one full revolution and decides that it’s bad enough he’s following her, and anyway he knows the _how_ already. Not all of it, maybe, but that’s the price of this. Cold slamming into him. Damp chill slithering right down the neck of his sweater is the price of doing what he knows he shouldn’t.

That’s what he tells himself as he stumbles into the stream of traffic out on Broome. He stands there, a befuddled, unwelcome obstacle, with his fists shoved in his pockets and his shoulders hunched ineffectually up toward his ears. The wind whistles around him, and there are no smiles slanting his way, grudging or otherwise.

Everything tells him to go back. To turn around and forget that he ever even thought about following her. The cold and the grey tell him. The wind and the mutterings of busy passers-by. The sure instinct about her that’s gotten him this far—that’s carried them both to the brink of another wonderful Christmas, whatever else is going on right now—fairly screams at him to go back. To race upstairs and warm himself. To make ready and play the part she’s cast him in, whatever the why of it all.

But it’s too late. He hears the sharp tweet of stilettos on the side walk. Or he doesn’t hear it, rather. It drops out of the soundtrack of a miserable day and his head turns. She’s there, almost  at Crosby, and she’s stopped dead. She’s an obstacle of her own, or she should be, but the foot traffic weaves around her, and there’s a grudging smile on every face that slants toward her as it moves past her at speed. 

She’s there, and his mouth opens, even though she’s too far away. Even though she couldn’t possibly hear him over the traffic. Even if he knew what to say.

Someone else saves him the trouble. Some other voice rings out from midway between the two of them. “Three more days, Detective! What will I do without you once Christmas comes?”

It startles her. It galvanizes, then stops her again, almost in the same moment, and he can see color come into her cheeks. The heat of a blush, though he doesn’t know how that’s different from the blossoms of cold already there. He only knows it _is_ different, and the fact that she starts and stops a second time—a third—before she finds her stride. Before she lifts her chin and covers the distance to the dark, bundled-up figure halfway between them.

“You’ll forget me by New Year’s, Gus.”

 _Gus._ The mailman. He puts it together out of order as halting steps carry him closer. Halfway to halfway, halfway, and he’s close enough to overhear. To add the sin of eavesdropping to having followed her in the first place.

“Never!” Gus laughs as he hands over the thick stack of envelopes. “I’ll look for you all year. All along my route!”

“All year,” she scoffs. She takes the bundle from him eagerly. It’s not a snatch, but it’s close, and her eyes narrow as they flick toward him. He stumbles back a guilty step, then two. He wonders if it would have been if he weren’t here. If he hadn’t followed her, but then again, she’s full-on flirting when she turns her attention back to Gus. She’s flashing him a full-on grin as she hastily slides the rubber bands free and hands them back. “Maybe you’ll miss me by next Christmas.”

  
“Next Christmas,” Gus sighs theatrically. “It’s a date.”

“A date,” she calls after the mailman as he moves off down the block, skillfully weaving his cart in and out of the foot traffic.

“A date?” It’s his own voice. His own rising question mark that’s almost lost in the howl of wind. He’s standing dumbly before her, not sure which of them closed the distance or how.

“It’s cold,” she says. She tugs at his arm. “Come on, Castle. It’s cold.” 

He thinks that’s the end of it. A reproving statement of fact as she shifts the sliding stack of envelopes to the arm farthest from him, and he’s pretty damned sure that’s the end of it. She’s polite to Eduardo as they make their way through the lobby. She shakes her head and says something reassuring as the elevator doors slide closed, and he knows it is. He watches her watch the light behind the numbers glide up and feels the why of things going, going, gone.

She’s the one that stops it, though. Literally and figuratively, she stops the why of things from slipping away. She slaps the big red elevator button just as three goes dark. Just before four lights up, she slaps at it, and the pile of envelopes rains down at their feet.

“They smell good,” she blurts as they both go to their knees. They’re a breath from knocking heads as he looks up in surprise and she looks up, daring him to interrupt her. “The cold.”

She has a handful of them now. Thick envelopes in silver read and green. She fans them out and holds them up to her face, inhaling deeply. Her eyes close and a smile just catches the corners of her mouth, and he wouldn’t dream of it. He wouldn’t dream of breaking the spell. 

“My mom and dad would get dozens of them,” she goes on. She’s blushing again, though her hair swings forward to hide it as she busies herself gathering up more and more of them. “Not as many as _you._ ” She can’t resist the jibe. She can’t resist a narrow-eyed look at him, but her hands are shaking and the words keep coming. “But dozens and dozens and she loved the smell. My mom loved that cold, furry smell, so I’d wait for the mailman everyday. From my birthday till Christmas.”

 _Your birthday_. The words don’t make it out of him. His throat closes with the grief of realization. With self-reproach over another cruel juxtaposition he’s somehow never thought of, so he follows her lead. He swallows past it and busies himself, fighting to make his half-frozen hands work. He has a handful now. More than a handful, and they threaten to spill to the floor all over again as he lifts them awkwardly to his own face. He breathes in. 

“Furry!” he exclaims, and his eyes fly wide. “They do smell furry.”

“They do.” She’s laughing at him. She’s blushing happily, and the smile tugs harder at the corners of her mouth as she comes up with the last of the envelopes. They’re evenly divided between them, just about. Silver and read and green clutched in both their hands. “Cold and furry and _good.”_

“So good,” he agrees as she tugs him to his feet.

He reaches past her and starts the elevator again. He tugs her down the hall. He goes backwards, bending his head and lifting her hands—her share of pile—to his nose to breath it in. The tiny gift of her history.

His back hits the door of the loft. She laughs and rifles through the pockets of his jeans until she comes up with the key. She presses herself into him, cold meeting cold, and she grumbles about it. He stops her, though. He juggles the sliding stack of cards in between their bodies and catches her wrist in the circle of his half-half-frozen fingers.

“Tomorrow,” he says. “Can I wait with you tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow.” She gives him a kiss that’s anything but glancing. “And the day after that and the day after that an all next year. We can wait together.” 

 

**Author's Note:**

> It’s dumb to post this when I’m about to pull everything down, but it’s too long for just Tumblr, so, oh well. 


End file.
